Nepal Begins Emergency Burials as Flood Death Toll Rises to 752, Hundreds Still Missing
Nepal has begun temporarily burying some of the hundreds of bodies recovered from devastating floods and landslides, as authorities struggle to preserve the remains and identify victims. Officials said DNA samples were taken and the bodies carefully documented before burial so relatives can later identify and retrieve them.
Why Nepal Is Burying the Bodies
The temporary burials are being used as a measure to preserve the remains until families can claim them.
Nepal is predominantly Hindu, and the traditional funeral practice is cremation rather than burial. Authorities therefore described the burials as temporary storage, allowing families to exhume the bodies later and carry out the appropriate funeral rituals.
Foreign Secretary Amrit Bahadur Rai said medical teams collected DNA samples from every victim before burial, particularly in cases where the remains could not be easily recognised.
“Following standard and accepted protocols, such as those of ICRC (Red Cross), the mortal remains of the dead, especially those not recognisable… have been temporarily buried,” Rai told reporters.
He added that relatives would be able to use the DNA records to match victims and exhume the remains when necessary.
Death Toll Rises Again
Nepal's disaster authorities raised the country's confirmed number of recovered bodies to 752 on Sunday, while 2,502 people remained missing.
The missing-person list includes 589 foreigners, highlighting the international impact of the disaster.
The disaster has also caused heavy casualties across the border in Tibet. Chinese state media reported 16 deaths and 546 missing people there following Wednesday's disaster.
Combining the figures reported from Nepal and Tibet brings the overall number of deaths to 768, while more than 3,000 people remain unaccounted for.
Authorities Running Out of Storage Space
The growing number of recovered bodies has created another emergency for Nepalese authorities.
Officials said many of the remains have started decomposing because there are not enough facilities to keep them safely preserved.
Rai said Nepal has appealed to other countries for freezer units and warned that the country needs more than 1,000 of them.
“We have requested different countries for freezers; we will need more than a thousand,” he said.
He explained that temporary burial became necessary because of the condition of some of the bodies.
“Many dead bodies have been collected, and they have started decomposing. To preserve public health, we had to bury the decomposing bodies,” Rai added.
DNA Samples Could Help Families Find Their Relatives
The decision to collect DNA samples before burial is expected to become crucial as rescue teams continue recovering victims.
Some bodies are difficult or impossible to identify visually, particularly after spending time in floodwaters and debris. Keeping DNA records gives families another way to establish the identity of missing relatives.
Rai said every victim was documented before burial, meaning authorities can maintain records that could assist future identification.
What Happens Next?
Nepal is expected to continue searching for missing people while working to secure additional freezer units, DNA testing kits and other emergency resources.
The authorities also face the difficult task of matching recovered remains with families as the list of missing people continues to change.
For families still waiting for information about relatives, the DNA collection process could provide an important route to identification. For the government, however, the immediate challenge is finding enough storage capacity to safely handle the large number of bodies being recovered.
The disaster has therefore created two urgent tasks at the same time: finding those still missing and preserving the remains of those who have already been recovered.